With CTIA 2008 taking place this week the technology news will be littered with articles on the benefits of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC).
Event exhibitors will be raving about their so-called solutions that enable FMC in the office environment but few will have given much thought about whether it is really the best solution for their customers.
Already this week we have seen UCStrategies.com announce a new enterprise whitepaper which focuses on FMC and the solutions that businesses can deploy to benefit from unified communications.
UCStrategies.com acknowledges that mobility is a key driver to unified communications but still states that to stay connected businesses need to integrate mobile with wired networks, creating FMC.
Although the paper claims to identify the core benefits of FMC, providing an objective assessment of the available options, it really shouts about the complexities that come with installing FMC technology and ultimately becoming unified.
FMC pushes for a united fixed and mobile world, where communications can be passed transparently between networks. However, in today’s mobile environment there is no need for the fixed-line telephony bit.
Businesses can be unified by being all-mobile without the unnecessary complication of integrating mobile with the wire line.
But what are the alternatives to FMC? Up until recently mobility was designed as an extension to office desk phones and hardware systems, being perceived as too expensive to handle all office calls.
But now it is the fixed to mobile element that is too expensive so mobiles have rapidly grown into individuals’ main and preferred choice of communication.
It could be said then that FMC is just another momentary fad. A favourite talking point of the industry which telecoms companies have jumped on.
FMC is really about the move to mobile where everyone’s phone is wireless so lets stop talking about FMC and instead talk about accelerating the move to mobile.
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